Guild Wars 2

hybrid.5027:

Thaddeus.4891:

Tree.3916:

Azhure.1857:

hybrid.5027:

There are 6 people out of 150 at teq whose job isn’t DPS.

As a person that regularly volunteers for defense teams, I’d like to say “Hello”. But I imagine you’re being a smart little kitten * pets * and just boiling everything down to DPS and DPS only.

Such a cute little kitten. * pets *

Defending turrets requires you to dps and only dps unless you fail your job and have to repair the turret… then you have to press “F” twice.

Well in this case almost everything in every game can be boil down to dps and dps only.

We aren’t talking about the rest of the game, we are talking about teq. The south hills job is to put a reflect up when the finger spawns, kill it, and then go back to the hills to kill the mobs. If you cite the one guy who casts feedback as a “non-dps role” I think it’s you who is stretching whats happening there.

Stretching what? I only responded to the guys that said that Teq is stacking at the feet and spamming all skills.

Ya you can boil down everything in the game to dps if you want. Everything is about killing enemies after all no? Anyway, I don’t see where this discussion is going.

@ Bernie
Well everybody is different. I don’t like either to do repetitive stuff. I play a bit of everything. Play sPvP, i have WvW raid with another guild, i do guild missions with my main guild, I do the living story with my friends, I do dungeon when i want (I did 1 path per week during 3 months, but now I’m getting back into dungeon lately), I like to run Silverwaste from time to time (I tag up with my friend, start a chest run and complete the breach), etc. When i really want more gold i do more repeatitive content so I can get that thing faster, but other time I take it slow. It will take longer to get the item, but I won’t force me into a specific part of the game if I don’t have fun. You can make good amount of gold without doing repetitive stuff. Of course if you want to have the maximum of gold possible, only 1 best way to make gold can exist whatever Anet does, so ya it will be repetitive.

Conserning Fractal. High Level Fractal is not content. Its a more challenging mode, but you can experience all the content in lower level. Just by doing fractals, daily and guild missions its super easy to reach 45 AR and get up to level 39. You are not limited in the content you can complete because of Ascended.

Tree.3916:

Azhure.1857:

hybrid.5027:

There are 6 people out of 150 at teq whose job isn’t DPS.

As a person that regularly volunteers for defense teams, I’d like to say “Hello”. But I imagine you’re being a smart little kitten * pets * and just boiling everything down to DPS and DPS only.

Such a cute little kitten. * pets *

Defending turrets requires you to dps and only dps unless you fail your job and have to repair the turret… then you have to press “F” twice.

Well in this case almost everything in every game can be boil down to dps and dps only.

This no swapping thing is smelling really bad to be honest. I can understand swapping in the middle of the game. But before the game start??? I always swap to fit the team needs. If I join a match on my ranger and there is no bunker, I’m want to be able to switch, especially if there is a bunker in the other team.

Looks like Anet took the easy way out on that one. Lets just put dishonour on everybody that quit the match, even if the reason for them to quit the game won’t hurt the team but will rather help it.

I can’t believe that they couldn’t just give dishonour to ppl to quit or swap after the game start. Neither do I believe that their algorithm will make sure that profession will be balanced. That’s crap. Profession give you a really limited amount of information about a good or bad composition.

Nick.6972:

Yes. It’s wonderful.
Stacking next to a foot while spamming all your skills.

I’d much rather have more Legendary Grawl Shamans.

So you are only doing the DPS part of the encounter and then whine about its only about stacking and spamming all your skills?

Do you change your build to fix the encounter? Do you help revive your fellow players that are down? Do you dodge the wave? Do you help stacking might? Do you drop or use conjure? Do you bring consumable like the pet whistle or the elemental powder? Do you try to find the double dmg spot? Do you don’t spam all your skill and try to use the right skill? Do you take care of the turret to decrease the armor? Do you use turret to remove the AoE on the zerg? Do you protect the turret?

Plenty of things to do during a Teq, stacking at the feel and spaming all your skill is only a small part of the total encounter. If everybody would do Teq like you, it wouldn’t done on a regular basis.

Bernie.8674:

pdavis.8031:

Oh i totally agree. However this game offers nothing that an average player cannot obtain. Ive gotten a full set of ascended and a legendary and working on a second set. For someone who doesnt play as much as a hard core player, it takes longer and you have to play more intentionally. When doing mine, as i said earlier, i only play about 24 hours a week. But was still able to get it. And thats the problem, peopel dont want to have to work for it, and seem to think that such things are beyond them but dont want to work for it.

Think about what you’re saying. You play the equivalent of a solid part-time job every week (24 hours a week!) and you were “still” able to gear up. That’s hard-core play. You play so much that your perspective has been skewed to the point that you still view 24 hours a week as casual play. Also, of course people don’t want to work for their in-game equipment. This is a game! We want to play. As soon as it starts feeling like work then I’d rather be working. When I’m working I’m rewarded with thousands of dollars a month for my effort. I then spend that money to play a game. I’m not going to spend that money to do another job!

Well most hobby take you that time. Back when I played hockey, i played a least 2 hours per day, 3-4 hours during the weekend. And that was only the time on ice, you could almost double that time in total.

Its not working, its a game. If you enjoy spending time on the game it doesn’t feel like work. If you can’t spent more than 10 hours a week in the game without feeling like its work, then just spend 10 hours. Nobody is forcing themselve into playing the game, this is just a stupid argument. Ppl spend the time they want to spend in any game. Some like to play more and other don’t.

Start by playing a better build for pve than shatter, that will help. Focus is more of a utility weapons for reflect and pull. Its nice in group, and when there is projectile, but otherwise you will have more dps with sword and pistol as offhand (their phantasm also usually live longer since they are not in melee all the time.).

But of course, even with the best build, Mesmer is not about DPS. Each profession have stuff to bring in a group (except necro, sorry). Mesmer are there for the utilities. Feedback and Portal alone can do wonder in a dungeon.

I did it with a group of 5 ppl while doing the Challenge mote. Let me tell you, the challenge increase with the number of ppl and it was awesome. Took us a couple of try, but it was so fun and challenging. But I agree that a mote to reset the fight like in Glint’s Lair would be nice. Other than that, nothing should change. A bit of challenge won’t kill you guys.

Ya it only need a small amount of time each day to eventually craft it. Of course is heavily time gated so it will still take about a month from the moment you start doing the actual crafting.

I’m there since the beginning and I can attest most of what Hybrid said there. I remember the discussions and video back from guru forums. Strife was the best known back then. Remember the knight armor, the AH Anchor build, the Ruby orbs. I remember the first post from Kitsune on the LH Elementalist, and the first test when strike and co brought him in an organized run to show the potential (I think it was in Arah). I remember the guang famous math on the Guardian dps.

Ah that was such a long time ago

joneb.5679:

You completely ignored my post and just spewed out the usual work for it lecture. Its a GAME!!! I work in real life. I have my priorities right.

And what you do think? That everybody with a legendary don’t work? Don’t have real life, with wife, kids, friends, stuff to do in the house, etc?

Legendary are super easy if you set it as a goal. OH it will be a long term goal if you casually playing a couple times per week. But this game is out for the last two years. In my guild we have a wide range of ppl with legendary. From the super hardcore with 10 legendaries, to the casual that took a year to finally craft his first legendary.

I don’t know for everybody else, but in my guild EVERY single person with a legendary right now all said at one time : Legendary? That’s way too much work for me, i’ll never do one. And guess what, 3, 6 months later they find out that they have most of the material, map completion, and they just need a bit of effort in a specific direction to craft it. They all did the same. I said the same thing when I started. I laughed at those legendary and the amount of stuff, and now 2 years later i’m working on my 5th.

Guild help a lot with the process btw. For the fun, tips and for the speed.

rapthorne.7345:

Keksmuffin.1450:

You use soldiers over zerker knowing that it’s not optimal. Why would you care about optimal runes/sigils for a build that isn’t optimal anyways?

Because shockhorror I have two armour sets.

Then give a kitten about the rune on your armor with the good stats and put whatever you want on your tanky one, its not like the rune will be important on that soldier set anyway.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

So basically Celestial Armor is god mode it looks like, has every singe stat under the sun; hell I might as well just craft an ascended version.

No its not at all. Its really good in pvp for ele and engineer, but not for the guardian. Celestial for a guardian would be a good middle ground if you really want 1 armor for both WvW and PvE, but it won’t be ideal.

You don’t want 3k+ Armor when you play roaming. You want 3k+ armor when you play Zerg. It would be better if you have 2 armor, but here a good middle ground.

Celestial armor + Rune of Flame Legion. While you are in WvW you take 4 zerker trinkets and 2 knight trinket. And you take medi guardian trait.

In PvE, keep the same armor, switch back your 2 knight trinket for 2 zerker trinkets and switch you trait to a PvE meta build like 4/6/2/0/2 or 4/5/0/0/5

You can keep zerker weapon for both WvW and PvE.

Cyrill Faust is right. If you want to forge Tier 5 into tier 6, bones and Venom will cost you gold. The others will save you gold on a different level, the blood being the more profitable right now. Of course, its best that you use the Tier 5 you collected, but buying tier 5 also work.

Silverwaste is probably the best way to farm Tier 6 right now, especially for the Labyrinth. So you can just complete a breach, do the labyrinth, then search a LFG that is close to another breach, rinse and repeat.

Cursed shore farm is not so bad either, but you need a good commander with 2-3 guys looking to the next event so that the farm go smoothly. Otherwise, it won’t be that efficient. That’s why I prefer Silverwaste, it work by itself almost.

1) It’s the opinion of some ppl. Other ppl like it. I had some great night with my guild in those. I’m a big fan of jumping puzzle so i had a blast with the last living story. They already gave us new maps and one of them became one of the most popular map in the game. New race and profession would be nice, but if you said that I hope you have all 8 profession at 80. I do and I still have a lot of thing to do and try with some of these profession. I will be happy when they add a new profession, but I don’t need that to enjoy the game.
2) Never gonna happen. Like Laz said, its an nice idea, but this will make a huge file to upload, you can’t just upload your custom armor, everybody need to download every armor or nobody will be able to see them. The only thing I could see is a contest where ppl can submit armor to anet and they choose the best to be implemented in the game.
3) Would be a nice feature.

I don’t agree on your average critical chance for the Rune of the Pack. But the difference is small.

In the end you are right. The Rune of the Pack have better dps than the Rune of the Ranger in that particular situation. If nobody give any amount of fury and if you get hit at least 4 times in about 1sec or less each 20 second.

Your fury uptime estimate won’t happen in any real situation. Its 25% chance when you get hit with a 20sec CD. So when the 20sec CD finish you need to get hit and you have 25% chance that it give you fury.

In dungeon, those two runes will probably give around the same amount of dps if there is no other source of fury. I have to confess that I didn’t expect that, but I have to agree now that i did the math too. I’m use to have 100% uptime of fury in most of my group, even pugs, so I kind of underestimate the power of the fury on hits.

So conclusion.

If your party give no fury. Rune of the pack will have about 4% more dps than ranger AND will give about 40-50% uptime fury to the whole party, which is a significant boost.

If your party give fury. Rune of the Ranger will have about 4% more dps over the Rune of the Pack.

Rune of the Pack is more interesting that I originally though for casual player, but again you need to get hit by enemies so it can be quickly get ugly or just drop in term of dps.

Edit : Scholar will give you about 5-6% more dps than Ranger. But the damage multiplier is harder to keep so it depend on you if you feel you can stay at 90% hp enough time. If you can keep your hp at 90% for 45% of the time or more, then Scholar will be better. If you can’t, then Ranger will be better.

spoj.9672:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

As for the zerker meta, it can remain unaffected at the end of the day. The goal would be to allow many metas to be seen in the same light so that the content becomes more attractive to more different types of people. I’m sure the OP would be just as happy.

You cant have many metas. That simply doesnt make sense. You just want there to be less exclusion and more balanced standards for pug groups. But that has nothing to do with the meta. Thats just a result of the games current difficulty combined with player behaviour.

Like we have said. It probably wont change even if the game gets much harder. So in the end you will just have to solve the problem for yourself by creating your own groups.

Yes you can. It depend on what you need for a specific situation. For example in fractal and for some dungeon, decreasing your dps to keep Master of Consecration as a Guardian will be the best choice. Some trait or skill become useless depending on your party composition. For exemple, no need to put 6 in air as a Elementalist if your party already cap vulnerability.

Of course you can have a really strict definition of meta which will only include 1 composition and 1 collection of build, but that will likely change depending on which dungeon you do and what strategy you are going for.

Meta is a loosely term and not everybody agree with its definition.

Zero Day.2594:

Thaddeus.4891:

Don’t think anyone will see it, but it would be funny.

And when someone will see it, they will cry OP and make a similar post as this, with slight implication that that’s the type of damage thieves do constantly.

:P but it would be funny.

Well I pushed it far to reach 18,9k HS. But now I want to bring a couple of guildmate with me and try to reach that on a innocent person in WvW just for the fun of it.

I’m sure i’m gonna die a couple of time before I can pull it off, but it would be awesome lol.

To OP : Go zerker, especially if you are casual with exotic only. In your build you didn’t choose any stats for your weapons so it should be 63% crits chance. Rune of the Ranger is a bit less dps, but if you play casual Ranger could be more dps since the buff is always there. Either are good it depend on what you prefer.

To Kargos : Knight could be ok in PvE if you have difficulty to survive in full zerker. Zerker will be better overall if you have difficulty with it try a couple knight pieces so you feel comfortable. But it will be bad in WvW. If you wanna play LB + GS in zerg fight you will usually bring Soldier gear with Melandru Runes and zerker trinkets. But if you want to roam in WvW, then a mix of Zerker and Knight could in theory work for both if you keep Rune of the Ranger. It would not be ideal for both, but that’s one of the rare time where you could do a decent job in both pve and wvw roaming with a single set of armor. Just don’t go too strong on the knight armor.

Purple Miku.7032:

04550 isn’t really a practical build to use though and I’m not sure if it’d be better unless you have someone else throwing out boons to you for that one minor trait in water to be good.

Ya it’s not a good dungeon build. Its nice for testing, but in real situation not so much.

You can’t provide vulnerability yourself to trigger Piercing Shards, you can only provide 2 boons by yourself for Bountiful Power, you can’t dodge or you loss Enduring Damage, if you don’t dodge the scholar and Vital Striking won’t be trigger much, you can’t provide bleeding to trigger Serrated Stones (only skill 1 in earth provide it, but you shouldn’t use it at all).

Ya of course some of these will be address in a party. Bleed and Vulnerability. Other will have a hard time even in a party like Bountiful Power (a party could give you 3-5 boons on a regular basis, but not much more). And the dodging problem is still there.

It will probably do more dmg than any other build in theory, but in dungeon i’m really not sure (except maybe some specific situation).

Here a build : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fZAQNAoYFl8MpypdOxxpJaJqtHhO4F86N0+CCgQE-TlRBABXt/o8DP9BLcCAA4BAQp6PmpEMAACwNbzA48m38m38mnbezbezbezSBExyI-w

That’s not a good build, just to give you the idea of what dmg HS could do in your situation.

Your Armor : 2773
Skill Coefficient : 1.5 (you said you were at 50% hp)
Base Power : 2921
You can activate 4 signet for 20 might + 1 might from steal. 21 might = 735 power. 200 power when in stealth. + 250 power from Bloodlust + 100 power from guards stack.
Total power = 2921735+200+250+100 = 4206
Critical dmg = 231%
Critical chance = 100% in stealth
Damage modifier = 15% Assassin’s Signet + 10% Scholar + 5% Dagger Training + 10% Exposed Weakness + 10% First Strikers + 5% Sigil of Force

Base Damage = 1030 * 4206 * (1.5 / 2773) = 2 343 dmg
Critical Dmg = 2 343* 2.31 = 5 413 dmg
Dmg modifier = 5 098 1.151.1*1.05*1.1*1.1*1.05 = 9 135dmg

So in theory it was possible for a thief to do a 9.2 HS on you by its own in that particular situation. Again, nobody use the build that I gave, its just to show you that its possible to give a really high HS with a thief alone.

Interestingny enough. That same thief with a little bit of help (4 more might), and against a squishy light armor (1846 armor is the lowest possible with an exotic armor). A thief could do a 18.9k HS or a 22k Backstab. Don’t think anyone will see it, but it would be funny.

125 precision is 6% crit chance. How a 6% crit chance will increase you dmg by 4-5%??

Rune of the Ranger give you 155 precision over the 125 precision of the Rune of Pack. Rune of the Ranger Win.

Rune of the Ranger give you 100 ferocity and constant 7% dmg modifier over the 175 power of the Rune of Pack.
Rune of Ranger Win.

But you are right with the rune of the eagle. Less good than Rune of pack.

I won’t gonna defend the Rune of Rage here. I would never take that. But OP wanted to give more boons and fury is was better than swiftness in dungeon. Keep in mind that if Rage will give you less personal dps, the increased duration on fury will affect all your group. I see both Pack and Rage as relatively bad, but if he want to give boons with steal, Rage will be better overall.

I like 6/4/0/4/0 for solo. With the pistol/shield over the blind, reflect and additional blast.

I really don’t get Rune of the Pack. Swiftness is not that good, just stealth if you have a hard time with some runs.

If you find it hard to keep 90% for scholar because you play with pugs, take Rune of the Ranger (mini count) or Eagle. If you want to make better use of trill of the crime Rune of Rage would be better. You only give 1 might, increasing its duration would be useless, but fury is good so increasing its duration would’t be so bad.

Why combined training over Dagger Training? Pistol Whip is good, but a 5% increased dmg on all Dagger skill is better than a 5% dmg increased on pistol whip only (who use death blossom really).

I don’t get the focus on swiftness for dungeon. Why put 5pts in acrobatic over the last 5pts in deadly arts to get revealed training.

Overall, its a good build. I question the choice of rune and the focus on switfness, but even with that you will have more dps than most pugs.

I guess you are right, especially the part about new players. But to defend Oxtred play the meta and get money quickly to buy berserker gear is ok too.

Take zerker rare gear, take the meta traits and then go after exotic/ascended stuff to complete the build. But again, your point is valid. Saying play meta to a player that just got his guardian to level 80 won’t help him at all if you don’t explain the meta or link to a guide on it.

petyr baelish.9675:

The 04550 build Iris mentioned has the highest dps in theory but in practice it’s nearly impossible to maintain both of the 10% multipliers, which is what i was poking fun at. It’s a nice benchmark but i doubt it ever gets used for anything aside from dps tests on dummies.

Interesting enough, DnT diddps tests on dummies and 6/6/2/0/0 had about 2% more dps. Of course those test are from last june, but I don’t think that any of those two build were buffed or nerfed since then. Did they?

Anyway, the difference between them is really close.

If the items are too complicated to do, they could just give us Trait Template. Items templates could be nice, but trait is something that most ppl move around the most.

Kitarpa.8143:

For what god forsaken reason would anyone want to run anything but zerker in PVE? I can see if like, someone got upset over a Guardian not wanting to run zerker and getting kicked.. but any other class? Why? There is absolutely no logical legitimate reason other than wanting to be a special snowflake and take more time than needed to complete an instance.

This isn’t a kittening meta, it’s just logical.

I’m play meta zerker on all my pve character, doing speed run, trying to teach it to everyone that I can. But this is not a good attitude. Zerker is only a small part of a good run. I played with ppl (a couple in my guild) that don’t run zerker, but are able to do a good job with us. On the other hand i did run with full zerker meta pugs (or guild mates) that went terribly wrong.

There is nothing bad in taking some piece of knight or soldiers if you feel you need it. Not everybody know enough each encounter to reach quick enough, not everybody play their character on a regular basis, some ppl just run a dungeon smoothly without rush and I often like to run dungeon with these ppl.

In the end its all about fun. For me its fun to run with a full meta party to go as fast, but its also fun to play more relax with some friends or nicely ppl that I find from time to time with pugs.

For other ppl, they can’t stand to play with non zerker guys and others can’t stand to play with what they call elitist .

petyr baelish.9675:

Thaddeus.4891:

petyr baelish.9675:

Iris Ng.9845:

I used to be convinced that S/x LH has higher burst than Staff, even though Staff has higher DPS on long fight. Goku firmly proves me wrong http://youtu.be/BF0ttD5lGkY.

By the ways, Miku, your suggested “absolute highest personal DPS” build is incorrect. It should be 04550 with vuln covered by Lightning Storm.

…. until you take a hit and/or dodge :p

You can say the same about the dodge thing for all profession. And both thing can be said about any dps Ele or thief.

I’m talking about the 10% multipliers in that build ^^

Ok got it. But not all LH Ele have that trait. 6/6/2/0/0 LH have almost the exact same dps as 5/4/0/5/0 but bring vulnerability and the tempest trait for some nice Icebow burst.

The risk of losing a multiplier with the 5/4/0/5/0 is another reason to take 6/6/2/0/0 instead.

Aggrostemma.1703:

OK, so from now on we should use the “viable” or “powerful” words. And I ask everybody to do the same if a beginner asks something.

And leave the “meta” word for the speedrunners and the “META” for theorycrafters

Any build is viable, and good/powerful build are not the same as meta build.

Ppl can take one of the meta and change it a little bit to adapt to their needs, making that new build a good build, but not a meta anymore.

Some profession only have 1 meta and 1 or 2 thing they can switch around depending on the situation. For exemple an engineer can take 6/6/0/0/2 for combat. Or take 6/6/0/2/0 for combat where you need more dodge like Lupi. Other profession have totally different build depening on the situation. Like Guardian with 3/5/0/4/2 Hammer build in fractal, or 4/6/2/0/2 GS S/F in normal dungeon.

These are all meta build, that you take depending of the situation.

Now you can put something like that on your guardian 2/5/0/2/5. This is a good build based on the meta, but its no longer a meta. Or you can take 0/0/6/6/2 in PvE, which is viable, but not good, nor a meta.

petyr baelish.9675:

Iris Ng.9845:

I used to be convinced that S/x LH has higher burst than Staff, even though Staff has higher DPS on long fight. Goku firmly proves me wrong http://youtu.be/BF0ttD5lGkY.

By the ways, Miku, your suggested “absolute highest personal DPS” build is incorrect. It should be 04550 with vuln covered by Lightning Storm.

…. until you take a hit and/or dodge :p

You can say the same about the dodge thing for all profession. And both thing can be said about any dps Ele or thief.

OP, GW2 have a totally different version of support compare to other MMO. A lot of person try to do a healer (including myself) and gonna fail miserably.

In PvE, this is really not a good idea. You may be able to out heal yourself, but you won’t be doing any dmg while doing that. If you are in a group, you won’t be able to outheal the incoming dmg to your group.

In PvE, the support you want to bring is damage mitigation and the guardian is the best at that. Blind and Aegis will protect your team from incoming big hit from enemies. Reflect will protect them from projectile. Protection will decrease incoming dmg by 33%. All good guardian build in PvE are build around that. You also have offensive support or buff. The Warrior, Elementalist and Ranger do it best. They can bring might, fury or some strait damage modifier for the whole group.

Still if healing is not a big part of PvE, its important in pvp. In sPvP, guardian and engineer can make good bunker that’s gonna heal themselve like crazy to stay alive and constest their node. Elementalist D/D also have crazy amount of healing to stay alive.

In WvW, the main source of healing is a water field dropped by a Staff Elementalist and blasted by Warrior and Guardian while regrouping.

In Dungeon most profession are welcome. But Necromancer are in the bottom in term of DPS, don’t bring utilities to the group, but are usually good at surviving. They are just not that good in dungeon setting. Ranger used to be really bad, now things are better, but they still have a lot of stigma so a lot of ppl still consider them badly. Elementalist, Thief and Warrior are in the top position in dungeon right now.

In sPvP, they can all do a great job, but Elementalist and Engineer are on top for the moment.

In WvW, Elementalist, Warrior, Guardian and Necro are on top. Mesmer and Thief also have important role.

Aggrostemma.1703:

Thaddeus:

I accept that the so called meta changes at every fight and every situation… That’s why it is called meta (most effective tactic available). But since the “meta” changes at every single situation, every single boss and every single fight you have … It means “meta” builds – and I mean gear-trait-sigil choises – are not existing. We can call it meta but it does not mean they actually are META.

Sorry for trolling so far….

Here is my point:

Why do you/we/me keep repeating the META builds to someone who has no freaking idea what it means, why is it good, how to play it, how to get it?

Meta is just a loosely define gaming term. You can put whatever definition on it if you want, but that’s not a strict and exact term. Its a general term to differentiate between some of the best build the community created and normal or bad build that are still viable, but not really good.

Windsagio.1340:

I’m not trying to convince you guys, you’re bizarrely committed to the subject.

This is more for people who don’t have ego-ties to the concept, so let me repeat myself:

In almost any dungeon that you’d want to pug the time difference between a ‘meta’ and ‘non-meta’ group is very small. If saving 5 minutes on a TA run is important enough to you that you’re willing to wait longer in LFG and take the time and effort to gear check people, that’s on you.

Nobody Pugs a lvl 80 fractal, just between you and me.

~~~

Edit: And on a more personal note, if you’re going for maximum reward/time you first don’t understand the concept of ‘games’ and secondly shouldn’t be running dungeons anyways.

HOLY CRAP. So all that time I didn’t have fun optimizing dungeons run and i didn’t even knew it. WOW thanks man, I’ll stop running dungeon then since you just make me realize that didn’t understood the concept of game and shouldn’t be running dungeons anyways.

Thanks mate

Ya the difference between meta and non meta can be really small. It depend on a large quantity of stuff.
- Running a meta build
- Having the skill to run the build efficiently
- Having the knowledge of each encounter and of the dungeon in general
- Having a good group composition
- Everybody doing their job to have max might, vulnerability, fury, banners, etc.
- Does everybody have consumable?

Ya if you don’t have the right meta build but you do most of the other stuff, you will still be able to do a good run. But there a wide range of time depending on several factor. For exemple, doing all 3 CoE path can take about 30-35min in a record run. My guild can do it in 45-50min. In most good speed clear pug group, you can do it in 60-70min. But this can easily go to 90-120min with most pug group.

Now that doesn’t mean go meta or go home. Like you said, its a game. I’m perfectly fine doing longer run with guild member that are new, learning or are more casual. I enjoy those run too. But that doesn’t change the fact that meta are the best way to do these content, even if other ways to do that same content can be as fun or even more enjoyable for other kind of ppl.

Ranger with a meta build is already ranked 7th in term of dps, so using a Bearbow build on top of that is just terrible. But for casual solo play, it’s a great build.

blickquickly.4168:

All right! I got 4 toons whos only job it is is to open a grand chest for 2 blades a day.

BUT….I just realized I also need to get this “Spinal Blade Pack Blueprint” thing. Its only made by getting the 4 blueprint scraps. The 4 scraps seem to only come (randomly I assume) in a bag of alliance supplies. The bags cant be obtained anymore (as far as I know) except through an “Heirloom Merchant”, where every they may be. I need “Heirlooms” (how??) to buy said bags from said merchant. This is what I gleaned from Wiki. Am I crazy or is this even possible for a casual player?

This is the easiest part. You can buy these scrap on the TP for about 1.5 silver each. This back item is hard, but that’s not about casual or not. It’s about being there when the event was there. My first of these back item was super easy to do, now I’m doing the other two, but blades shards are hard to get by. I have the sprocket node in my home instance and the mining pick that give sprocket from time to time when I mine. With sprocket you have a recipe that create more blade shard. So if you really want the back item you can still buy large quantity of sprocket and craft blades shards in the mystic forge. But it will cost you about 2 gold of sprocket to craft 10-15 blade shards. It will cost you about 100 gold if you try it that way, but you will be able to do it in an hour compare to a years at your current rate.

I don’t have this problem with my node and my mining pick, but if I didn’t have those, I would buy sprocket to do it. Just do about 2 hours of dungeon during 2 weeks and you will have enough gold to buy the sprockets you need to get your blades shards.

KevinB.9643:

one if the reasons I avoid playing Ele is that ppl did not appreciate me camping staff. And they told me that I was a waste of dps because I should be might stacking with S / X or D/F (I dont know for sure)

I think PUG’s find me camping staff more forgiving when there is a 1st Ele that uses a might stacking/ LH build.

But again, I dont main Ele

Well it depend on what you are doing with your staff camping. If you stay at 1200 range and don’t provide 6-9 stack of might and constant fury, then ya of course they won’t appreciate you lol. Especially, since you drop your dps if you are not at 300 and less from your party. If you don’t put ice bow either, then ya well…

Never heard any complain when I play staff Ele correctly. But it is true that a LH Ele is better for a group than a Staff Ele (at least for the first Ele in the group).

Fashion Mage.3712:

Traiting for healing usually isn’t necessary for being able to heal decently. Healing Breeze (with a staff, if a moderate amount of healing power is used) already provides a lot of group healing, and if burst healing is really needed then Tome of Courage can be used.
About the staff’s DPS, I believe it’s about the same as a sword?

Ok i’ll be more clear, but I think we agree in the end.

1) When I said those thing I was talking about a meta build that you just switch zerker to zealot. In that particular situation, you don’t have much group healing.

2) If he use healing breeze you are totally right. But Staff is a terrible weapons in pve. So its not only zealot gear that drop its dps, its also the use of a staff. Staff can be ok if you play hammer build (hammer have the best standalone dps), but then you want to use staff only before a fight, but during when the heal would be useful, but the dps soooooo bad. Tome of courage does heal, but again you heal not for that much, you don’t dps at all while doing that and you don’t have renewed focus for a additional aegis and blind which will probably block more dmg that you gonna heal with tome of courage.

So ya, if you change zealot to have healing power, and you change to a non meta build to have the healing skill to take advantage of your healing power then ya you gonna be able to heal your group. But your build will be terrible for your team. Heal is far less powerful than dmg mitigation (which is the MAIN strength of the guardian btw). You gonna end up in one of those situation.

- Good meta group will have no use for you. They will carry you and you heal won’t help them at all.
- Bad meta group will need all the dps possible or they will die. You will end up rezzing everybody, ppl will be upset, they will blame you even if its also their fault.
- Casual group will like you tho. You gonna be able to keep them alive, but any content will take so much time.

KevinB.9643:

Aggrostemma.1703:

FFS! Meta!

How can we have more meta builds for a same job?

Meta means the-MOST-effective-tactic-available…

So cannot be more than one.

So half of you are talking kitty.

(sorry for trolling but this “meta” kittenes me off)

The man has a point

No he doesn’t. Meta is the best build that the community can come up, but not all situation are the same.

In fractal, you want to bring a Hammer guardian for the protection. If you already have a Hammer guardian, then you switch to GS S/F.

If you are in a dungeon like CoF, you want to have the best dps, but if you are in CM, you want Master of consecration for the extra Reflection.

If you are in TA, you like to have a staff for these blossom, then Hammer is a better standalone weapons for combat.

There is a couple of Meta build that you can use depending on the situation. And most ppl are not nazy on that. You can change them a little bit to adapt you your own need. 4/5/0/0/5 is not the best build, but you lose little dps, for max support and can work in almost all situation. It is considered a meta build, because that the best build for general purpose, it work everywhere and a lot of ppl don’t like to change build.

Scholar is the best rune for a guardian, but Flame Legion is acceptable since scholar is costly. Normal ppl don’t have any problem if someone is diverging from the meta a bit as long as they stay with a good build in the end and don’t try to bring an healing staff guardian or don’t bring reflect when its needed.

Purple Miku.7032:

the blast finisher on the autoattack in combination with a staff elementalist is widely known for being awesome. Even if staff elementalists had slightly lower personal DPS I don’t think they’d be ruled out entirely.

That’s an interesting view. But I think that if LH Ele would have the best dps over a Staff Ele, then you would have 2-3 LH Ele, which is enough to have 25 of might for the whole fight, making the constant fire field from the Staff Ele not that useful anymore. I really think that If LH Ele had better dps than staff, then you could do a better job with just LH Ele and no Staff ele. Anyway, I think that Dekeyz did the math and test on several occasion on this. Staff Ele do more dmg than LH Ele. Each of them have their strength and weakness.

KevinB.9643:

Although I prefer to camp staff as an Ele, I assumed that Staff Ele only has the highest DPS in-game if there is a might-stacking Ele in the first place. But…I could be wrong. Please do tell me.

I don’t play Ele as a main though.

Well, when you compare their DPS, you compare them in a party that give 25 stack of might. Don’t know what would be the difference between their dps if they were in solo situation. I know that I would rather bring a staff ele in that situation anyway since LH in solo can be suicide.

Chrispy.5641:

Everyone against OP is basically demanding that you do a mindless farm in the same two areas instead of actually playing the game the way you want to play.

….yeah….how about no.

You are half right. For ascended gear, dungeon IS NOT the best way to go. For my ascended gear armor I got all my metal and wood from gathering, I got most of my silk from WvW and bought for maybe for about 30gold worth of silk and other scrap.

Most of my ectos came from guild mission, fractals and world bosses.

My dragonite came from world bosses.

My Globs of dark matter come from exotic i crafted to reach level 500.

Never had to do dungeon to craft my acended armor or weapons. It just take time because of time gated recipe.

For a legendary, its another thing. Dungeon is a big part of getting a good amount of gold for the precursor. But the Silverwastes is pretty similar to dungeon in term of profit if you do it with friend. We make a chest run, advertise it in the map chat, run around the map, helping every event that we can find, then the breach, then the labyrinth. If you know what you are doing, you will get a really good amount of material and gold. Didn’t enough test to say 100% sure that its as profitable as dungeon, but it’s kitten close (if you exclude record run time in dungeon or selling path).

I’m doing my 5th legendary and I don’t do just dungeon. I do dungeon when i want to do dungeon, I do wvw, tpvp, world bosses, silverwaste, etc. It would be nice to have more highly profitable content in the game other than dungeon. They seem to go in the right direction with silverwaste. But that doesn’t mean that dungeon is the only way to gain good amount of gold.

Welcome back

One of my guildmate just asked a similar question yesterday. Here what you can focus on during your early period in gw2.
- Level up your character to 80
- Do your World Completion. It will allow you to see the world, have wp unlocked, gain some transmutation stone to change your look, gain some black lion key for some fun reward, give you a good starting amount of gold.
- Complete your personal story. Some don’t like it, but the first time its nice. If you want to read and listen to the story, it will be nice and that will explain a lot of stuff on what’s going on in the world.
- Go after your first set of exotic gear. Don’t worry if you are not sure which armor take, go after the one you think you will need. The first one can take a bit to have, but you will see that after it super easy to get an exotic armor. (I changed maybe 5 time my complete exotic armor when I started so not a big deal if you choose wrong at first, experiement).
- Try out different stuff Dungeon, Fractals, WvW, sPvP. Watch out in Dungeon and Fractals, make sure ppl in your party know that you are new. Ppl are awesome and will help you, but if you don’t say a word, they will expect you to know what you are doing and will be mad at you when you figure out that you don’t.

Elementalist are probably the best profession right now. They are number 1 in PvE, they are on the top 2 in sPvP and are in the top 4 in WvW.

In tPvP, your armor is only there for the looks. Its completely separate from the rest of the game. So you gonna have to choose a specific pvp amulet (no link to you amulet in pve), runes (no link to your runes in pve), trait (no link to your trait in pve), sigils, etc.

The only think that stay from your pve character is your look and the weapons you have. The rest is completly different so you can have a totally different build in pve and tpvp and you won’t have to change when you change game mode. Your problem is probably that you didn’t know that, and you have a weird build that you have by default and that you never changed in pvp.

For the ascended armor. Amulet is the only ascended item that is easy and cheep for everybody. Ring are cheap if you do fractal, but can be costly if you don’t. Accessories are cheap if you do guild mission each week, but otherwise they are not cheap. Back item are either costly or very long to craft. Weapons and Armor are in another catergory. An full ascended armor will cost you between 400 to 600 gold. It will be probably less than that since you probably gonna have some material already, but you will also need to level up your crafting profession, which will cost between 60 to 110. Weapons cost a bit less to craft at around 50-70 gold.

These cost can be cut down a bit if you craft stuff all by yourself, but it will take you long since there is a lot of recipe that can only be crafted once per day.

In the end ascended won’t really change your experience in WvW. I’m in an hardcore WvW guild and about half of us don’t have an ascended armor so don’t worry. A good build, the right type of gear and experience is your problem right now. Improve those will make far far far far more difference, than an ascended armor.

ekarat.1085:

You bring up a point that I’m not clear about. When you say “sells for”, do you mean in terms of printed value or value of that item in the auction house? If you mean auction house, how does rune/sigil make a difference for that? Is there a different entry for each rune/sigil, or do all base items have the same entry? I was assuming the category was for base item and runes/sigils were either stripped out or effectively random. (I’m a newbie, so I really don’t know.)

Always the TP price. You look up the price of the exotic. If its higher than the threshold you selected, then you look at which sigil there is in the exotic. At first you gonna need to look it up, but with time you will know which sigil/runes sell for a lot. If the sigil/rune by their own sell for a good amount, you can salvage the exotic with a black lion kit, sell the sigil/rune and keep the material for the salvage.

Windsagio.1340:

Well I’m not annoyed per se, I’d hope my posts in this would be clear enough that I think /meta is a waste of time. I’m in this thread for that reason. The ‘meta’ doesn’t need to die, it’s just a silly bit of fluffery, and I’m hoping to spread that message.

Plenty of people DO legitimately get mad though, as the OP shows.

Well now you look like a geocentrist running around trying to spread the word that the earth is the centre of the universe.

You still gonna have to prove that meta is a waste of time. The only thing you were able to prove so far is that you are not good enough to be able to survive in Silverwaste and that you think that that’s hard content.

Maybe you don’t know that, but when fractal started ppl were doing level 80 with zero Agony Resistance were literally every hit could 1 shot you. And they were still doing it with zerker gear.

Most ppl I know use these rules.

- Basic Salvage kit for everything
- Master/Mystic Salvage kit for all rare. The price of ectos vs rare is linked, there is time where you should sell rare, but these time are usually short and you need to carfully follow the market for that.
- If you have black lion salvage kit, salvage all exotic that sell for less than 1,5gold. If they sell more than 1,5 gold then check if its the exotic that sell or it it the sigil/rune inside of it that sell for a lot. Usually, when it’s because of the sigil/rune you are better to salvage it with a black lion salvage kit and sell the sigil/rune.
- If you don’t have black lion salvage kit. Do the same thing, but the threshold should be around 1 gold.

The threshold of 1 gold and 1,5 gold for exotic is not precise. It’s an easy trick to remember, and use. The situation is more complicated than that, these threshold change over time and depend on a lot more variable. But these amounts that I choose work fine most of the time even if they are not exact.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Our point is that it is the skins that should be the costly part. Things that take the time to hunt or farm or save for.

Not the stats. They should be mutually exclusive; however, in the case of ascended (which I don’t think is all the wonderful a skin to begin with) they are not.

Well obviously, Anet don’t agree with you. The best stats was exotic and they added ascended because ppl complained that it was too easy to get the best gear. Can we please don’t get back into a 18 months old discussion about ascended.

But ascended and legendary are not the only goal in the game. There is plenty of really cool looking weapons and gear that are less costly. Things like Volcanus at 440 gold, or Eye of Rodgort at 300 gold, or Abyssal Scepter at 200 gold, or the Crossing at 100 gold, or Lord Taeres’s Shadow at 50 gold. Everybody can find a weapon or a piece of gear that is feasible with the amount of time they want to spend in game and the profit you can turn during this time.

Ok so 3k gold for a legendary and 400-600 gold for a ascended armor is too much? At which level you want it? 1K gold for a legendary? Ok, but for some ppl 1k is way too much and they will still complain, while hardcore player will complain that they don,t have anything else to do because they have all the legendary.

Ya Legendary and Ascended armor are costly, because those are the best item in the game.

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

I did every dungeon. I have my dungeon master, and I’m lv 18 fractal with 25 AR and seen every fractal and did them. I do open world more as I found a better way to make gold than run the same dungeon over and over doing the boring meta way of play. I only go back to a dungeon nowadays to get tokens for a skin I don’t have and i suffer doing it with you meta lovers.

Even then, I can just pvp now that I have every reward track open.

I don’t grind for gold in dungeons. I do them for a challenge. Standing in one spot even in fractals and killing everything AI exploited, and not doing the mechanics how they were intended, is boring and lazy and non-challenging.

I rather have a dungeon with 5 man puzzles, traps (guild puzzle style?), and doors— that seal themselves off Zelda-style until you kill every foe with good rewards and money— right now to have at least a semblance of a challenge. I did make this suggestion in the now dead dungeon forums and not one positive reply.

Goes to show who is not open to change and its not me.

I must be that jaded or want something new.

So you don’t like playing dungeon. Big deal. You have stuff that you like to play in and other ppl have stuff that they like to play in.

If playing the meta was the only way possible to do a dungeon, then ya ppl trying to kill the ’’meta’’ would have a case. But right now they don’t need to play the meta. They can do as they want, but they also want to force their way to playing into other players throat.